This research aimed to identify indications of scientific literacy resulting
from a didactic and investigative interaction with Google Trends Big Data
software by first-year students from a high-school in Novo Hamburgo, Southern
Brazil. Both teaching strategies and research interpretations lie on four
theoretical backgrounds. Firstly, Bunge's epistemology, which provides a
thorough characterization of Science that was central to our study. Secondly,
the conceptual framework of scientific literacy of Fives et al. that makes our
teaching focus precise and concise, as well as supports one of our
methodological tool: the SLA (scientific literacy assessment). Thirdly, the
"crowdledge" construct from dos Santos, which gives meaning to our study when
as it makes the development of scientific literacy itself versatile for paying
attention on sociotechnological and epistemological contemporary phenomena.
Finally, the learning principles from Papert's Constructionism inspired our
educational activities. Our educational actions consisted of students, divided
into two classes, investigating phenomena chose by them. A triangulation
process to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods on the assessments
results was done. The experimental design consisted in post-tests only and the
experimental variable was the way of access to the world. The experimental
group interacted with the world using analyses of temporal and regional plots
of interest of terms or topics searched on Google. The control class did
'placebo' interactions with the world through on-site observations of
bryophytes, fungus or whatever in the schoolyard. As general results of our
research, a constructionist environment based on Big Data analysis showed
itself as a richer strategy to develop scientific literacy, compared to a free
schoolyard exploration.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures, 8 table
